かわいい a verb?

82riceballs · 8 Aug 2008

I'm wondering if the adjective かわいい could actually be used as a sort of verb... The reason I'm wondering this is because I read a sentence in Doraemon. Nobita's father orders Nobita to help him weed the garden on a hot day, so Nobita says:

お父さんは、自分の子供が、かわいくないのだろうか。
英訳：I wonder if my father doesn't love his own son.

So, I looked up かわいい on Yahoo辞書 and found this example sentence:
だれでも自分がかわいいものだ
英訳：Everyone puts himself first.

Can anyone compose any more example sentences to help me understand this more?

Thanks in advance!

alantin · 8 Aug 2008

82riceballs said:
I'm wondering if the adjective かわいい could actually be used as a sort of verb... The reason I'm wondering this is because I read a sentence in Doraemon. Nobita's father orders Nobita to help him weed the garden on a hot day, so Nobita says:
お父さんは、自分の子供が、かわいくないのだろうか。
英訳：I wonder if my father doesn't love his own son.
So, I looked up かわいい on Yahoo辞書 and found this example sentence:
だれでも自分がかわいいものだ
英訳：Everyone puts himself first.
Can anyone compose any more example sentences to help me understand this more?
Thanks in advance!

Well.. It's not a verb.
It is often the case, when translating from a language to another, that you can't really use the same grammar forms (even more so with Japanese!).
It just doesn't make sense.
For example, "好き" is an adjective in Japanese but it is still usually translated to English with a verb, "to like".

Those translations are understandable and convey the meaning, but they aren't accurate.

Just try to understand the different way of thinking it and try to get rid of the English thought pattern.

お父さんは、自分の子供が、かわいくないのだろうか。
"As for father, children of oneself are not dear, I wonder"

だれでも自分がかわいいものだ
"Whoever, self is dear"

I wonder if anyone can explain this better.. ☝

Nall-ohki · 8 Aug 2008

82riceballs said:
I'm wondering if the adjective かわいい could actually be used as a sort of verb...

No. 可愛い（かわいい） is an adjective, through and through.

You can combine it with なる to mean "become cute/become dear".

あの子は１４歳になってからどんどんかわいくなったでしょう。
That girl sure became cute quickly once she hit 14.

お父さんは、自分の子供が、かわいくないのだろうか。
だれでも自分がかわいいものだ

Both these are translations, not word-for-word dictionary lookups.

A direct translation might be:

お父さんは、自分の子供が、かわいくないのだろうか。
(To a father), (his own child) is (not precious) (I wonder).

だれでも自分がかわいいものだ
(To everyone) (the self) is (precious).

かわいくない is the negative form of かわいい (not cute, or un-cute as some might say).

Good, natural translations very rarely share the same grammatical structure as their source corpus.

tada · 8 Aug 2008

You can also add がる, as in 可愛がる, which basically means you act cute/loving/whatever.

82riceballs · 8 Aug 2008

私の質問を答えてくださってありがとうございました！
Thanks for answering my question!

Elizabeth · 8 Aug 2008

tada said:
You can also add がる, as in 可愛がる, which basically means you act cute/loving/whatever.

Yes. To love in the sense of being devoted to, act dotingly on, affectionately towards etc.

So if you are as much of a cat-lover as I am (impossible as it may seem ? ) as one example I might ask you to:

そのネコをかわいがってやってください。

Elizabeth · 8 Aug 2008

82riceballs said:
私の質問を答えてくださってありがとうございました！
Thanks For Answering My Question!

私の質問に答えてくださって（くれて）ありがとうございました! ;-)

かわいい a verb?

82riceballs

後輩

alantin

日本語を勉強する者

Nall-ohki

先輩

tada

変わってる

82riceballs

後輩

Elizabeth

先輩

Elizabeth

先輩

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